Jihad

Essay by shahzamanUniversity, Master'sA-, August 2009

download word file, 7 pages 5.0

For non-Muslims, "jihad" is perhaps one of the most feared and most misunderstood religious concepts around, which conjures at its worse, bloody war on those who oppose the followers of Islam, and at its best, a holy war. A very much feared and hated group associated with the term jihad is the terrorist organization "Al-Qaeda." Notorious for being the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, United States, Al-Qaeda is perceived as misinterpreting and misusing the concept of jihad to wage terroristic war and violent acts against those who simply refuse to abide by the their extremist or fundamentalist version of the religion of Islam.

One has to look into the circumstances of the origin of Al-Qaeda along with the factors that led Al-Qaeda to become strong enough to attract people all over the world to fight non-Muslims. USA used the terminology Jihad to motivate Muslims from all corners the world to help Afghanistan in its fight against USSR.

USA supported the most criminal people from the Muslim countries through training, latest weapons, food and health supplies to these people to destroy USSR. After the USSR war, USA stopped taking care of these people who have been involved in the war. These people after a decade and so considered themselves as neglected. Therefore, they started taking the revenge from USA. Coming to the initial point, there was no ideology of Jihad in the USSR war; it was only the US strategy to engage USSR against the criminals of the world.

Islam defines Jihad to stop evil deeds in the society. It can be explained with a very simple example. When US attacked the poor people of Iraq, It is a cruel act. So according to Jihad one should try to stop...